


Gravity

by Everlind



Series: Young Folks verse [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Humanstuck, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-08 21:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1956231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlind/pseuds/Everlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>EB: i have no idea how he’s going to react, ok?<br/>EB: what if he reacts badly, what if he says i can’t see you?<br/>EB: i don’t want to lose you.<br/>CG: YEAH?<br/>EB: yeah.<br/>CG: THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T FUCKING LIE TO ME.</p><p>--</p><p>No matter how much you love someone, relationships aren't always easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] blocked ectoBiologist [EB] \--

 

Your hands are shaking. Can’t breathe. Can’t fucking breathe. This is not happening.

The centre of your being aches cold and yawning. Hollow. Like you’ve been gutted from heart-to-navel and the empty cavern is already being invaded by fat squirming maggots. The back of your tongue tastes thick and dry. Need to breathe but you might just fucking gag on the pain.

Oh god, oh god. That did not just happen.

The reflexive heave to bring air into your lungs comes sudden and unanticipated, harsh enough that for a single reeling moment you fear you’ll be fucking sick right then and there, vomit out slithering lengths of entrails and hurt all over your keyboard.

Damn it, _damn it_ , get a grip. Get a fucking grip you useless sack of abhorrent feces. Your hands curl into fists.

You are so. fucking. _angry_.

Angry doesn’t even do the spitting hot maelstrom in your gut justice. It feels like you could rip the skin from your body and still be screaming when you die from it. Feels like you could tear down buildings with your bare hands, pulling and clawing until your nails are reduced to ragged fragments and brick dust is caked into the flesh. Feels like you have to give voice to it, roaring it to the skies until you’re spitting blood from your raw, cracked throat.

Instead you breathe out. Choppy and half-assed, but breathing in thready gulps.

Okay. _Okay_. Calm down. You blink at the screen as the blare stings your eyes, suddenly much too sensitive to face those simple words still waiting on your computer.

You did the right thing. Did you? No. Yes. No, you _did_. You really did. If you hadn’t blocked him you’d have- you might just have— no. You can’t do this.

Knock on your door. Your belly lurches as you jolt at the sudden noise.

“KK, dinner’s ready.”

You stare at the door, frowning. How did the whole goddamn world not just grind to a halt just now?

“KK?”

“Yeah, I’m coming.” Your voice sounds as though there are invisible fingers squeezing it.

A pause. You can feel the sudden shift in Sollux’s awareness as he picks up on tremble in your words. “You okay?”

“I’m”— hurtshurts _hurts_ John —“fine. Keep your rank panties untwisted and covering your skinny, pustule-ridden ass, Captor. I’ll grace your undeserving carcass with my presence shortly, got it?”

“Whatever man,” Sollux replies. His shuffling steps retreat down the hall.

Right then. You turn to look at the screen again. Still blocked. Of course, what else? You did that. You blocked him. He gave you no choice. You stare at the screen uncomprehendingly. Reality dissolves like smoke, banned towards the furthest recesses of your perception.

God.

 _John_.

You stupid piece of shit. There comes the anger again, popping at your sinuses like fizzy hot bile, like some deranged taintdrooler decided to cross the line of no return and concoct a vomit-flavored soda. Fuck fuck fucking fuck this, god fucking damn it, damn it all, _FUCK_.

Okay, no, suck it up. Stop throwing a tantrum. It won’t help. It happened. Now you have to deal. Somehow. Not now. Later, because you’re hurt and furious and confused and if you try to make sense of what happened you are going to spectacularly flip your white-hot, freshly laid and still steaming shit and do something you’ll regret.

Instead you push away from your desk, feeling weak and numb at the edges of your self and walk noodle-legged towards the kitchen.

Where, you discover with no small amount of disorientation, Sollux and Gamzee have already finished eating. Surely you weren’t in your room that long? The chair scrapes on the tile as you pull it back, making your lips draw up instinctively as the sound joins the painful rattle of turmoil merrily swirling around in your skull. A tension headache just waiting to wrap itself around your brain and smother it gleefully.

There’s a nasty taste in your mouth. A plate of barely tepid chicken curry is waiting for you - Gamzee took the trouble to cook separate portions for you and Sollux actually containing meat for once. You poke the rice with your fork, not hungry at all.

“You look shittier than usual,” Sollux comments dryly as he parks his scrawny ass on the edge of the table. 

“Yeah well, the stuff floating in the toilet when I’m done crapping after Gamzee’s cooked four-alarm chilli looks more appealing than you ever do,” you mumble back half-heartedly. Sigh and shake your head. “Go away, man, I’m not in the mood.”

“Okay,” Sollux says slowly, drawing out the vowels. Raises an eyebrow. “Wow, dude, what happened?”

What a question. _You_ are not even sure (okay, shit, no. You do, but — it came out of fucking nowhere (did it? really?)). All you got is:

“I fought with John,” you say.

Sollux’ expression segues smoothly into an eyeroll. “Oh,” he goes, dismissive. It smacks of ‘that’s all?’. And yeah, okay, the two of you squabble all the time. It’ll have you spitting and vicious, but it’ll be resolved in an hour, maybe two. Knocking heads with John is nothing new, granted. This, however…

You put your fork down, press the back of your wrist to your mouth for a beat before answering: “He still hasn’t told his father.”

Pause.

“Oh,” Sollux goes again and this time it is one hundred percent ‘aw hell’.

More silence. You pick up the fork again and jab it into a chunk of chicken. The curry has developed a thick film on the surface, it breaks into skin-like flaps when you lift your fork towards your mouth. Cold. You chew methodically.

“Now what?” Sollux asks, voice empty of snark. “Are you going to break up wi-“

“No!” you hiss, reeling away from his presence, physically as well as mentally declining the very idea of doing so. “No, shit. I just have to- have to think for a fucking moment is what. Fuck.”

Sollux raises both hands defensively. “Just asking,” he mutters, before pushing away and disappearing from view.

You’re not. Fuck no. _No_. You love that goddamn bastard, no matter how much you’d like to punch him in the face right now (lies; like you’d harm him), or despite it even, shit, of course not. It’s why you blocked him. If you hadn’t you’d have done something you’d have regretted. Something terrible. Something that couldn’t be made right again, not ever. Know thyself - which you do, actually. You are not, by any general rule, _nice_. This even after you’ve mellowed over time. Hell, you’re a mean asshole on a good day. You know this. You also know that if you hadn’t forcefully stepped away from that conversation you’d have gone and ruined it. Because you know John and you know his weaknesses, you know his fears and dreams and all the little things that he worries about even if he’s never told you them out loud. Fuck, you know shit about him he probably doesn’t even realize himself. Angry as you were, you’d have used it against him. Knowing that it’d hurt him and you’d have wanted him to hurt just as much as you were. 

Are.

Fuck.

You press the heel of your left hand against your eye and eat your cold meal in silence.

*

It’s late when you finally scrape together the courage to return to your room. Your furniture is thrown into stark shadows by the streetlights outside. What warmth the watery sun managed to generate has fled by the onset of the night. You shiver, reach for a sweater. One of your own, not that godawful ugly blue plaid number John left behind in January. The one you wore every damn day, no matter if blue and you don’t agree at all. 

Right then. Tugging the sweater in order you edge closer towards your laptop, open the way you left it on your desk. The screen has gone dark so you jiggle your mouse.

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] blocked ectoBiologist [EB] \--

Exhale. Lean back and drag both hands through your hair, raking the curls out of your eyes and pinning them against the top of your head with your palms. Okay, fuck. You better review this pesterlog properly. You scroll back up to a point in the conversation right before it all went to shit.

EB: so how are you feeling?   
CG: FEELING?  
EB: didn’t you go and squirt out a pint of blood today for the greater good?  
CG: YOU MAKE IT SOUND LIKE I SWUNG BY AND THEY MILKED ME LIKE A GODDAMN COW.  
EB: where would they even milk you from?   
EB: is the question.  
CG: …CHRIST. YOU HEAR THAT JOHN? IT IS THE TORMENTED WAIL OF MY BRAIN BEING PRESENTED THE VOMIT INDUCING IMAGE OF  
CG: YOU KNOW WHAT? NO. FUCK THAT AND FUCK YOU. I AM REPRESSING IT.   
EB: eheheheh.  
CG: YOU KNOW, JOHN, THERE HAVE BEEN OCCASIONS WHERE I SNEEZED AND THE FRESHLY EXCRETED FILM OF GLISTENING NASAL MUCUS WAS MORE BEGUILING THAN YOU.  
CG: ANYWAY.   
CG: LIKE USUAL?  
EB: they stick a needle in you aaaaaaaand?  
CG: THEY DON’T EXACTLY POKE A HOLE AND SUCK IT OUT. IT TAKES A WHILE FOR THE BAG TO FILL UP.  
EB: wait. what? what’s a while?  
CG: ONLY ABOUT TEN MINUTES. I DO NOT EXACTLY TIME IT, DIPSHIT.  
CG: YOU HAVE TO STICK AROUND FOR A WHILE AFTER, BUT THEY FEED YOU SO IT’S NOT AS THOUGH YOU JUST SIT THERE TWIDDLING YOUR THUMBS.   
EB: oh.  
EB: what’s your blood group?  
CG: O-  
EB: could you give blood to me?  
CG: YEAH IT IS THE UNIVERSAL BLOOD TYPE.  
EB: that’s kind of cool.  
CG: I THINK WE BOTH HAVE A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT MAY QUALIFY AS ‘COOL’ OR NOT. OPENING UP AN ARTERY FOR YOU DOES NOT FALL UNDER ‘COOL’.  
CG: NOT TO MENTION ‘COOL’ DOES NOT FALL UNDER ‘COOL’ BEING THE SORT OF VERNACULAR ONE WOULD EXPECT FROM SOMEONE WITH THE MENTAL EQUIVALENT OF A HORMONAL THIRTEEN YEAR OLD WITH A THUMB UP THEIR ASS.   
CG: *SPOILER*   
CG: THAT SOMEONE IS YOU.   
EB: just think about it.  
EB: you’ve been doing this for years, right?  
CG: RIGHT…?  
EB: and your blood can help literally anybody who needs it.  
EB: you’ve probably saved thousands of lives dude.   
CG: I SINCERELY DOUBT THAT.  
EB: i am serious here!   
EB: it’s like you’re a hero in a story.  
EB: like a knight!  
CG: DON’T SAY IT.  
EB: the knight of blood.  
EB: it is you.  
CG: OH MY GOD.  
EB: now please, sir knight, mount your wild stallion to come and rescue me from this essay, sword at the ready.  
EB: uh.  
CG: RIGHT.  
EB: that sounded…  
CG: YEAH.  
EB: er.  
EB: okay. i’m just going to change the subject now.  
CG: YOU DO THAT.  
EB: right. uh. they feed you?  
CG: JUST SOME JUICE AND A COOKIE OR WHATEVER.  
CG: THAT REMINDS ME.  
CG: THEY GAVE ME TWO MOVIE TICKETS, TOO.  
EB: whoa, really?  
CG: ON SOME OCCASIONS THEY GIVE OUT FREEBIES TO LURE IN MORE VOLUNTEERS.    
CG: I AM A REGULAR BY NOW. SOMETIMES THEY SLIP ME AN EXTRA.  
EB: that’s pretty awesome of them.  
CG: IT IS.   
CG: SO  
CG: WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO AND SEE A MOVIE NEXT TIME YOU’RE HERE?  
EB: are you asking me out on a date?  
EB: karkat?  
CG: I.  
CG: YEAH I SUPPOSE  
EB: :)  
CG: IS THAT A YES?  
EB: of course, stupid head!  
EB: like you even have to ask.  
CG: OKAY. GOOD. I’LL SAVE THEM FOR WHEN YOU VISIT.  
CG: SPEAKING OF VISITING  
CG: I’VE BEEN THINKING.  
EB: don’t hurt yourself!  
CG: SHUT UP.  
EB: eheheheheh.  
EB: well?  
CG: HANG ON. YOU’RE SO IMPATIENT.  
CG: IT’S JUST THAT I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT, WELL, VISITING.  
CG: IT WILL BE YOUR BIRTHDAY SOON.  
CG: MAYBE I COULD COME AND VISIT YOU. THIS TIME.  
CG: IT SHOULDN’T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE YOU DOING THE VISITING. COUGHING UP LUDICROUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY ON AIRPLANE TICKETS AND WASTING HOURS WAITING AT TERMINALS.  
EB: oh.  
EB: it’s not like i mind or anything.  
EB: don’t worry about it!  
EB: besides i nearly have enough saved up to come and see you again soon. :)  
CG: I KNOW, YOU DOPE. THAT IS NOT WHAT I AM SAYING HERE.   
CG: I’D LIKE TO COME AND VISIT *YOU*  
CG: OKAY?  
CG: IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY.  
CG: YOU ARE TURNING TWENTY. IT’S KIND OF A BIG DEAL.  
EB: it’s only a number.  
EB: just a day like all the others!  
EB: and you’d have take up vacation days and stuff. it’s easier if i come and see you.  
CG: JOHN  
CG: CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG. BUT. IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU DON’T WANT ME THERE.  
EB: what? no!  
EB: dammit, karkat, don’t be ridiculous! of course i want to see you.  
CG: JUST NOT IF I COME AND VISIT YOU IN SEATTLE.  
CG: ISN’T THAT RIGHT?  
EB: no! stop twisting my words.  
CG: I’M NOT TWISTING ANYTHING.  
CG: I’LL MAKE IT SIMPLE THEN  
CG: DO YOU WANT ME TO COME AND VISIT YOU IN SEATTLE FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY?  
CG: JOHN?  
EB: it’s just…  
EB: i’d rather come and visit you like always. okay?  
EB: we’ll have more time for, you know, us! and more privacy.  
EB: it’s just easier.  
CG: EASIER *HOW*?  
CG: YOU  
CG: OH GOD.  
CG: YOU HAVEN’T TOLD YOUR FATHER.  
CG: DID YOU  
CG: JOHN.  
CG: JOHN I FUCKING SWEAR.  
EB: i’m here! calm down, geez.  
CG: TELL ME JUST HOW THE FUCK I AM SUPPOSED TO BE CALM?! YOU SAID YOU TOLD HIM! YOU SWORE YOU DID WAY BACK IN DECEMBER.  
CG: YOU LIED TO ME.  
EB: i just.  
EB: i was going to.  
CG: YOU SAID YOU HAD. YOU SAID SO RIGHT BEFORE YOU  
CG: WAIT.  
CG: SHIT.  
CG: SHIT!!  
EB: ???  
CG: WHAT THE HELL DID YOU TELL HIM WHEN YOU WERE HERE IN JANUARY?  
EB: i just told him i was at dave’s. like i always do.  
EB: why are you making such a big deal out of this all of a sudden?  
CG: BECAUSE, WOW, I DON’T FUCKING KNOW LET’S RECAP, SHALL WE? YOU LIED.  
CG: THE END.  
CG: TUNE IN NEXT FOR MORE THRILLING WAYS TO KICK YOUR BOYFRIEND OF HALF A YEAR IN THE TEETH AND HOW TO SMILE WINNINGLY WHILE YOU’RE AT IT.  
CG: AND ANOTHER THING. ARE YOU SITTING DOWN, JOHN? ARE YOU GRIPPING THE EDGE OF YOUR CHAIR, BECAUSE THIS WILL COME AS A SHOCKER: I AM NOT A GODDAMN IDIOT. I KNOW DAVE AND ROSE ARE FLYING TO SEATTLE FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY. NOT LIKE THAT’S SOME KIND OF BIG SUPER SPECIAL SECRET.  
CG: THIS MIGHT SOUND STANGE, BUT GUESS WHAT? I FIGURED YOU’D WANT ME THERE. YOU KNOW.  
CG: AS YOUR BOYFRIEND.  
CG: HOW STUPID OF ME. OBVIOUSLY YOU’D MUCH MORE PREFER TO PROCEED LYING TO YOUR FATHER. AS WELL AS ME, IT SEEMS, WHILE YOU’RE AT IT. WHAT’S A LITTLE COLLATERAL DAMAGE BETWEEN LOVERS, RIGHT?  
EB: don’t do this.  
CG: DON’T DO WHAT, EXACTLY?  
CG: CALL YOU OUT ON YOUR LYING BULLSHIT?  
CG: AND WHILE WE’RE ON THIS FESTERING DISASTER OF A TOPIC: WHAT THE HELL, JOHN? DREDGE UP SOME BASIC RESPECT AND TELL YOUR FATHER! YOU’VE BEEN DECEIVING THIS MAN TO THE POINT MY PRESENCE IN SEATTLE WOULD MEAN YOUR CAREFULLY CONSTRUCTED PYRAMID OF LIES WOULD COLLAPSE SO MUCH AS A HOUSE OF CARDS.  
CG: I ACTUALLY TRUSTED YOU ENOUGH NOT TO PUSH.  
CG: I ACTUALLY TRUSTED YOU ENOUGH NOT TO LIE.  
EB: i will tell him okay? why are you attacking me like this suddenly?  
EB: i thought you understood! you are pushing me!  
CG: YOU DON’T EVEN GET IT, DO YOU?  
CG: ALL I EVER DID WAS EXPRESS CONCERN ABOUT THE FACT THAT YOU TELL YOUR FATHER YOU’RE GOING TO VISIT DAVE. YOU DON’T. YOU’RE WITH ME. SOMEONE HE’S NEVER MET, SOMEONE WHO’S HAVING SEX WITH HIS SON, SOMEONE WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU, MAKING ME ESSENTIALLY AN ACCOMPLICE IN THIS TRAVESTY! I HIGHLY DOUBT THIS WOULD MAKE HIM MORE AMENABLE TO OUR RELATIONSHIP IF YOU EVER MUSTER ENOUGH SPINE TO ADMIT THAT YOU’VE BEEN GOING AROUND HIS BACK TOUCHING A DICK THAT ISN’T YOURS WHILE HE PROBABLY THOUGHT YOU WERE PLAYING SHITTY VIDEO GAMES ON DAVE’S XBOX.    
CG: THAT’S ALL.  
CG: AT WHICH POINT YOU DECIDED IT WAS FAR EASIER TO JUST LIE TO ME AS SOON AS THE OPPORTUNITY PRESENTED ITSELF SO YOU WOULND’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH IT.  
CG: YOU JUST FUCKING LOOKED ME IN THE FACE AND LIED.  
CG: AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I WOULD LOVE TO BE THERE WHEN YOU TURN TWENTY. I WOULD LOVE TO GET ON A GODDAMN PLANE WITH DAVE AND ROSE AND LISTEN TO THEIR SARDONIC BULLSHIT WHILE I AM CRAMMED INTO A SEAT SO CRAMPED I CAN LICK MY OWN FUCKING HEELS. I’D LOVE TO SEE YOU, BUT I CAN’T AND THAT FUCKING HURTS. I’D HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DEAL WITH IT, TOO, HAD YOU NOT LED ME AROUND BY THE NOSE LIKE SOME BESOTTED FOOL, BELIEVING THAT WITH YOUR FATHER INFORMED AND RECEPTIVE, THERE’D BE NOTHING STOPPING US.  
CG: THE ONLY THING I WANT IS FOR YOU NOT TO FUCKING LIE TO ME.  
CG: GUESS THAT WAS TOO MUCH TO ASK.  
EB: i have no idea how he’s going to react, ok?  
EB: what if he reacts badly, what if he says i can’t see you?  
EB: i don’t want to lose you.  
CG: YEAH?  
EB: yeah.  
CG: THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T FUCKING LIE TO ME.  
CG: IF YOU LIED ABOUT THIS, HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO TRUST ANYTHING ELSE THAT FALLS OUT OF YOUR WORD HOLE?  
EB: this was the only thing i ever lied about, okay?  
EB: and i will tell him, karkat, okay? i will! i swear.  
EB: i just need a little more time.  
CG: MORE TIME? IT’S BEEN HALF A YEAR. LONGER.  
CG: THIS OUR RELATIONSHIP YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.  
EB: i know.  
CG: BUT YOU STILL DON’T WANT ME TO COME AND SEE YOU IF IT MEANS TELLING YOUR FATHER.  
CG: JOHN.  
EB: fine! yes, okay? god, just stop making such a big spectacle out of it.  
EB: everything is always such a drama with you.  
EB: just give me a little more time.  
CG: I CAN’T DO THIS RIGHT NOW.  
EB: what?  
CG: i can’t. i have to go.  
EB: wait!  


\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] blocked ectoBiologist [EB] \--

It’s as bad as you remember it to be. Worse, now that you have all the time in this godforsaken world to see your own shitfall of a response. You could have handled that better. Shit, no - you _should_ have handled that better. You inhale sharply and just, well, sit there. Because you remember that Skype call and you remember John leaning towards the camera all ‘ _guess what?_ ’.

And then he lied.

Extremely convincingly and more than once, at that. Every single fucking time you brought it up (tentatively relieved and happy), he went and lied again. And that hurts. That hurts a lot. To the point where even tears aren’t happening, just a numb sensation paired with an inability to break away from the endless string of whywhywhy _why_ running through your head. John’s not supposed to lie to you. You’re supposed to be able to trust him. He’s supposed to be able to trust _you_! Are you such a godawful person to be in a relationship with he thinks he has to lie to prevent… what, exactly?

You’re so angry.

Doesn’t that piece of shit know you love him? That’d you’d wait a hundred fucking lifetimes for him, if that’s what it’d take? 

Fuck.

No.

You need to jump three hours back in time.

You can’t. It’s done. You have no idea what to do. You need to sleep. It’ll be better after you’ve slept. The hurt will dulled enough to take the sharp edge of cruel viciousness off it, the cold gut-kick reaction that makes you want to hurt him back because you _can_. (and you can - by god, you really can, can tear him down if you wanted and you want to, you do, you do, you _don’t_ , you really don’t)

It’s way too early and the deep press of exhaustion you feel can’t be fixed by sleep, but you get ready for bed anyway. 

You lie awake for hours, staring at the ceiling.

*

Sometime in the early morning you must’ve drifted off, because you wake with a start when your alarm goes off. Shit. You rub a hand over your face - it’s numb from the lack of sleep. What little you had was riddled with dreams you can’t remember, the sort that chase you when you’re down and out for the count, helpless.

Your phone shows twenty three missed calls and even more unread messages.

Without reading them, you delete every single one of them. Block him for good measure. Still too angry. Don’t know what to say.

You go to work instead. 

*

You come home after a godawful day of work and internal angsting to see _one_ : Gamzee baking cupcakes and _two_ : a furby.

There is a motherfucking _furby_ sitting next to Gamzee on the kitchen counter. You’re so damn tempted to exit stage right, but instead you just stare at it in numb consternation. What? Really? What? No. No fucking way.

“Gamzee,” you start, low and warning.

“Best friend,” Gamzee replies. Licks purple frosting straight off the spoon before dunking it right into the full bowl again. Swirls it happily. Urgh.

“What the fuck is that?” you demand.

And, as if on cue, the furby does this horrid mechanic shuffle and turns towards you. Huge digital eyes regard you with malicious intent: “Moh-moh!” it says. The ears flap. Clearly, it is evil. Your back hits the wall. Can’t run. It’s in the house. It will make Gamzee its minion and direct him to murder everybody in apartment in their sleep. You just know it, you’ve seen movies like this.

“Oh, this little miracle brother?” Gamzee says and… pets it. You’re all so dead. The furby’s eyes do a happy sparkly animation. You can’t believe what you’re seeing. “Me and Tavbro were like getting our walk on, just following our noses and gettin’ a whiff of them happy summery smells, you know?” He beams at you. There’s frosting crusted around his nostril. 

“Gamzee,” you groan, rubbing at your temples. “It’s fucking February. That means it’s winter, you useless fucknode.”

“Huh,” he goes, blinks slowly at you. Shrugs, one of his typical, full-body gestures. Smiles absently at the bowl of frosting instead.

“Oi,” you go, prompting him before his brain wanders into lala land for fuck knows how long. “And then what? A bird flew over, shat out this inane excuse of a child’s plaything and knocked out the last pitiable excuse of a braincell you had left?”

Bleary look. “Well, it was like motherfucking serendipity, my brother. Suddenly I all up and see this little fluffy fella all by his ownsome behind them glass prison bars and I just fucking knew, you know? All up and straight up-like from one of your true loving movies. I just motherfucking knew. Felt it right here in my chest thumper,” he spreads a huge hand over his chest emphatically.

Why do you even bother to ask? 

“It’s green,” you go. “Why is it green?” It makes no sense. Gamzee’s all about purple and polka dots. Actually, it’s green with a red tuft on its head. Somewhere out there is an idiot who gets paid for this shit. The idea makes you want to start snorting boxes full of thumbtacks. Gamzee peers at you with a slack-jawed expression suggesting he can’t fathom why it _wouldn’t_ be green. You roll your eyes. “Okay, never mind, don’t hurt yourself. Give me that spoon.”

He does. The frosting tastes like, huh, blueberries. Not bad. You prop your butt up against the dinner table and lick it clean.

That’s when Aradia wanders in. “Hey boys,” she says.

You nod, smacking away a mouthful of frosting.

She walks over to the furby and you barely contain yourself from shrieking ‘run, save yourself!’. Fucking useless anyway, Aradia is all about creepy shit. As is only evidenced when she promptly reaches out and tweaks the monstrosity playfully. “How is our little cutie?”

You are surrounded by idiots.

“May-tah! May-tah!” the furby chirps. All you want is to smack the damn thing out of a window, utilising your spoon like a baseball bat. Home-run, assholes. 

“You little rascal!” she grins and hops up next to you on the table. Swings her legs rhythmically once, twice, before stretching out her right one and poking Gamzee’s ass with her big toe. “Decided on a name yet?” 

He smiles lazily as he turns to face the both of you. His face paint fissures around his eyes as the skin crinkles. “Meet Caliborn, my miracle sister.” He regards the infernal contraption with the fond air of a parent introducing their offspring. Granted, if Gamzee ever managed to knock up some unfortunate soul, you predict the result would be about the same: hairy and insane. 

“A shitty name for a shitty piece of infantile entertainment,” you mutter from around the spoon. Gamzee ruffles your hair.

Aradia bumps shoulders with you. “Are you alright? You look worse than usual.”

“Wow,” you go, popping the spoon out of your mouth and narrowing your eyes at her. “You know just what to say to a guy to cheer him up, don’t you?”

“Well, you do!” Aradia says, shrugging.

A long lanky arm drapes over your shoulders, tweaks your earlobe. “Tell me all about it, best friend. Just let it all out.”

You shrug him off and get up for another spoonful of frosting. It’s cloyingly sweet and a complete overkill to eat on its own. John’d be grossed out.

Ngh.

Dammit.

“None of your goddamn business,” you mutter. Caliborn the furby stares at you. You inch away, cradling the bowl of frosting to your chest. You plan on eating the whole damn batch. It’ll be terrible. Possible side-effects could include but not be limited to projectile vomiting - you’re just hoping you’ll spew out the crawling anxiety nesting in your stomach out with it. You’ll aim for the furby. Be the fucking hero you so totally are. Right.

“It’s not healthy to keep it all locked up inside, you know?” Aradia points out. 

“Sharing is caring, Karbro.”

“Gamzee, you are missing the goddamn point so spectacularly you wound up in a doomed timeline. Shut the fuck up and bake cupcakes.” You spoon icing faster into your mouth - it’s time to abscond the hell out of the kitchen. 

“I have a phone and am not afraid to use it!” Aradia singsongs, baring her teeth and twirling her mobile between her fingers at you.

You stare at her, mouth open and full of frosting. O… kay? What?

“Hmmm,” she continues, tapping the screen and easily swiping through the apps. Showily calls up her contact list. “Who’d be more effective, I wonder. Kanaya? Oh, what about Jade.”

“Aradia,” you say slowly, putting the bowl down and taking a step closer. 

“No, no,” she shakes her head emphatically and scrolls on. “Terezi, it definitely has to be Terezi. Or! Or… Kankri!”

Wow. Hell no. You make a wild grab. “Phone privileges re-fucking-voked! Give me the damn thing-“

“Nope!”

“I am not fucking kidding, you gleeful harpy, give me-“

“Still no!” Aradia says and stuffs her hand -phone and all- into her generous cleavage. “I dare you.”

“That is so unfair,” you tell her. “Please, don’t call my cousin. I will _not_ strangle you with my white hot rage and dump your corpse in the park for the crows to feed on, how’s that?”

Her hand comes back out from between her boobs (you can almost hear the _pop_!). The phone is gone, possibly never to be seen again. You think you might envy the damn thing, what a way to die. Smothered by breasts. Shit, where do you sign up?

Aradia snorts. “I’m not going to call _Kankri_. What am I? Crazy?”

“Do you require an honest answer to that?”

“Dah-boo!” the furby interjects, doing a weird steppy dance on the spot. Christ, that’s just so fucking wrong.

“Can’t you turn that shitty thing off?” you snarl at Gamzee.

“Little brother is just speaking his mind, friend,” he responds, crossing long arms over his chest and leveling what might just count as a serious business look at you. “All up and giving the right example. You might wanna get your motherfucking follow on, you feel what I am conveying?”

As soon as you can get away with it the furby is going into the food processor, crush mode. “Just drop it, okay?” you press your knuckle into the inner corner of your eye. Enough. Just, fuck, enough. “John and I had a fight,” you tell them, fully intending to leave it at that. It’s the truth and you owe them nothing more.

“Oh,” Aradia goes and fuck her, seriously, it rolls out of her mouth in the exact same, dismissive way Sollux used. 

Gamzee however, Gamzee’s expression goes dark. “Did that motherfucker disrespect you?”

You fuck up by hesitating. Gamzee’s eyes go wide and cold. “Not, not really-“ you splutter, but you don’t get much further because Gamzee growls and your heart shoots up into your throat. Nothing human should make that sound. God, no. Not this. Not now.

“Seems like I have to MOTHERFUCKING TALK to a motherfucker eyes-to-eyes like, make sure he’s DOWN WITH THE WICKED TRUTH about how to motherfucking respect my most precious of brothers, WON’T I? Will just have to SQUEEZE THE FUCKING IGNORANCE from his motherfucking self, wring until all OF THE MOTHERFU — _ack_!”

squirt squirt

While you were one more _motherfucking_ away from shitting your damn pants, Aradia’s grabbed squirt bottle you use to mist the plants and has aimed it at Gamzee. Aradia used spritz bottle - It’s super effective!

“No!” Aradia says. She pulls the trigger. Squirt. “Bad Gamzee!”

“Motherfu- _pftr_!” 

Rage vanishes from Gamzee’s face as he spits and hacks against the stale water being sprayed into his face. Aradia’s standing with her feet planted, arm fully extended as she spritzes mercilessly, chin lifted and lips drawn back. The phone pokes up from between her boobs. A total money shot. 

Meanwhile Gamzee is snorting water out of his nose and pawing at his face with his big clumsy hands. Hopeless. But hey! At least he’s too busy trying to figure out what the hell just happened instead of offering to club your boyfriend to death. Small blessings. Aradia blows at the nozzle, then twirls the bottle with flair. Winks at you, full mouth curving. That girl is batshit bananas, true, but damn if that wasn’t awesome. You give her a grateful nod as she drifts out of the kitchen again, most likely to see if she can spritz some sense into Sollux as well.

You grab a wad of paper towels, hook a finger into the collar of Gamzee shirt and reel him down to your height. Pat his face dry. His face paint goes a blurry, catches in the curls of his hair, but he looks like a massive doucheclown anyway - anything is a goddamn improvement. 

“Are your grotesque chest protrusions sufficiently calm, you colossal hulking piece of goat feces? Done flipping your murderous, half-baked bullshit?”

“Karkat,“ he splutters, “I’m not down with this motherfucker disrespecting you, motherfucker needs to-“

“Shoosh the fuck up right there,” you say, grabbing his chin and squeezing until he ducklips. “You do not get to meddle. Also hey, guess what, no insane cuckoo murdervibes. My boyfriend? Yeah, I kinda want him in one piece. Capisce?”

“Don’t like to see you all sad and frowning,” Gamzee interjects, pushing down into the hold you have on his face until your foreheads bump together. “Lovin’ should make you smiling, my brother.”

“You are oversimplifying,” you sigh, even as you lean into him a bit. He smells like sugary batter and slightly stale sweat. “You always fucking do that.” He really does, though. Gamzee’s MO is basically: ‘do I like them?’ If yes, proceed with sticking dick into them, if no, promptly forget about their existence and bake more pie.'

“Must been some bad sort of fight to get you this down and low. Makes me motherfucking angry just thinking about what he motherfucking up and said to-“

“Stop it,” you growl and he does, gathering the whole of you up in his limbs so he can cuddle the hell out of you. It’s… okay, you needed this. You hug him back, thinking how Gamzee doesn’t even understand what is going on, how he can only see the part where John hurt you and nothing of everything else, but he’s cupping your nape as though you’re something precious, something worthwhile and that helps, a little. It’s easy to let yourself be held, nose squished into his bumpy breastbone and stay there until the crawling pain living under your skin to _fix it_ _somehow_ dulls into something bearable.

“I just had a motherfucking idea,” Gamzee rumbles into your hair.

“I am already balancing my shit in a freshly polished skillet, ready to be flipped,” you answer, shifting to rest your ear over the beat of his heart. “Proceed at caution.”

“Motherfucking ice cream.”

You groan into his chest. “Oh god yes please.”

“Caramel peanut butter crisp.”

“Now you’re just talking dirty,” you say, pushing away from him. Gamzee’s grinning, wide and lazy with his eyes gone soft and affectionate. You gently punch his shoulder with a fist. “Let’s go, you trounced up gremlin. Better fucking own up.”

“You got it, best friend.”

 

You eat too much ice-cream and make yourself sick. It’s so fucking worth it.

*

Three days go by. Three days during which you do exactly nothing.

Three days you drift around with a sense of bereavement clogging up your chest and no idea how to alleviate it. Which is a lie, because the answer lies in John, mostly, in John and wanting to skip back to a point in time where he hadn’t lied to you. Hah. If wishes were horses you’d be galloping into the goddamn sunset by now. Giddy-up. Damn it.

You need to do _something_ and you fucking know it, but you are at a complete loss of what, or how, exactly. You’re still angry at John, is what, and you’re afraid that confronting him will make it worse, have you both slide so far down the slippery slope you won’t ever be able to climb out and you’ll just sit at the bottom covered in shit with no way out.

Sleep has always come difficult to you. As a child you had awful nightmares and you’d wake with the sound of your own screaming still ringing through the room. In the past years it’s mostly settled into being unable to turn your damn brain off, it just keeps churning out more ass-stained gibberish no matter how tired you are (the fucker who decided to eliminate the ‘off’ button from the final design can go and fellate a porcupine). So when you find yourself awake at two in the morning and engaged in a battle of wills with your goddamn sheets, you give up and slide out of bed. Some battles just aren’t worth fighting - then again some are, and being awake will grant you a _lavish_ timeframe to freak out some more. Love is a motherfucking battlefield, indeed. You need a manual. Or a cheat code. Maybe a FAQ. Hey, how about a spine?

It feels like the walls are leaning down on you, you’re that keyed up - you need to… to not be _here_.

It is cold outside. Cold and dark. The air rushes into your lungs fresh and cleansing, spills out again in a fog of white. You pull up the hood of your sweater to shield your neck against the cold, impatiently jamming the mess of your curls inside to keep your eyes clear.

It’s very quiet. While it still hasn’t snowed in Texas, everything is lightly frosted over and the streetlights precede you in a glittering wave as you walk down the road. You walk fast and you walk with your head down, trying to outrun the miasmatic knot of agitation in your belly. Part of you wishes for snow, for the bone-deep silence and stark white and a memory of making snowmen with your father drifts to the forefront of your mind. At seventeen and so fucking ready to wallow in your internalised angst, you’d not been happy to have the sheets snatched from your body at seven in the morning. Snow wasn’t a big deal, but your father had been ecstatic. You wish you’d known to appreciate those moments more.  

You walk for half an hour, maybe more, and then your phone rings, shattering the silence so abruptly you nearly piss yourself. After a moment of fumbling the damn thing between your frozen fingers, you bring it to you ear without second thought.

“Karkat.”

You stop walking. “Dave.”

“We need to talk.”

“That is the worst fucking idea I have ever heard and I live on a twenty-four seven basis with the likes of Gamzee and Sollux.”

“You know what, you’re absolutely right, here’s Jade. See ya.”

“Wait. What?”

“Karkat.”

“Oh my fucking god, you can’t be serious about this.”

“I am extremely serious about this, Karkat, _someone_ needs to do something.”

You feel your belly flood with a roiling combination of shame and anger. “You know what, Harley? You’re right. You’re so fucking right you can park your sweet ass down and pat yourself on the back, that’s how right you are. Are you happy now, Jade? Do you feel better now? I really hope you do. Are we done? I think we’re done, so you can gather your well-meant meddling and place it lovingly up Dave’s anus and fuck the hell off. This is none of your business and you have no right to-” 

“Oh, can you just shut up already?” she snaps. “I know, alright? I’m not here to tell you what to do.”

“Sure, pull the other one, it has bells on it.” 

“You’re so childish!” Jade huffs.

Right. Whatever. You’re done with this. “Did John put you up to this,” you demand and Jade snorts.

“Wow, if you believe that, you really don’t know him at all.” Ouch. That was a bullseye. She’s not done, either. “My brother is doing what he does best. Sticking his head into the sand and pretending nothing is wrong.”

That right there is when your heart pauses, for second, maybe longer, halted by regret and dismay and… guilt.

“Is,” you swallow. “-how is he doing.” She doesn’t answer you. You inhale sharply, press a knuckle into your eye socket to stave off the impending tension headache. “Look, Jade, it’s like three in the morning here.”

“I knew you’d be awake,” Jade answers, almost kindly. For a moment she just breathes into the phone, even and deep flares of static. You match her, one after another. “Just hear me out, okay. I am going to tell you something and I just need you to listen.”

“—I,” you falter and clench your eyes shut. It’s like that moment where you miss a step going down a staircase, knowing that the fall was inevitable and just a heartbeat away, but for the duration of your heart contracting around the bubble of helpless fear you don’t believe it will happen, like you still have time to reach out and prevent it somehow. You’re already falling, though. “Shit,” you exhale long and hard, a stream of shimmering mist. “Fine.”

“Thank you,” Jade says, sarcastically. It could strip paint off the walls. “One question first: is this about his birthday?”

Yeah, you’re definitely thudding down those stairs now, head-first and ass in the fucking air. “Not… not exactly,” you grit out, unwilling to admit to anything unless they pin you down and scrape it out of your brain.

“Hm _hmm_!” she goes and you feel about an inch tall. “John is scared, Karkat,” she says in a completely different tone.

She said you had to listen, but that cuts you so sharply, so unexpectedly that you feel that wordless roaring ring through your skull again. “Of what?” you snarl. “Of me? Am I such a shitty person he’s got to lie to-“ and shit, _shit_.

Shit.

Jade, however, has always been the better person. Mulish and proud and fiercely loyal to a fault, but a better person, because she doesn’t say anything at all, only goes ‘ _Ah_!’ into your choking silence, like it was she who cut you off. “He’s scared of how dad will react. He really, really worries about that.”

“Look, I get that. I honestly do, I’ve been there, remember? It’s just that, shit, all I ever hear about this man is how kind and great he is, not to mention he’s perfectly accepting of Jake.”

“Jake’s not his son,” Jade points out. “John’s scared that dad will be disappointed in him.”

From countless of conversations, you’ve come to understand a few things about John’s relationship with his father. Mainly that the constant praise and declarations of how proud his father is compound a building sense of anxiety within John _that one day he won’t be_. That one day he’ll fall short. He’s bitter about the seemingly endless supportive encouragement, because there will come a day he’ll fail to live up to those expectations. He’ll fail and all that praise won’t matter jack shit, because there’ll only be: _you were not good enough_. And even as John complains and whines and acts like a total brat about it, he’s constantly trying very hard to live up to those expectations. You know that studying Biology is not exactly where he wants to be, but where he feels like he _should_ want to be.

“Will he be?” you ask.

“I… I don’t know. I really want to say dad would love us no matter what and it wouldn’t matter to him, but-“

“Yeah,” you reply. You remember, you were scared, too. You lungs feel tight. 

He lied to you. He’s scared. He’s supposed to be able to trust you.

Is this your fault?

“Anyway,” Jade sighs into the hollow space of her honesty. “That’s what I wanted to say. I don’t - I honestly have no idea what happened, he doesn’t talk about it and I’m not saying he’s right, but John’s my little brother, Karkat.”

You swallow around the lump of gritty rock in your throat. “I know.” For a minute you breathe together, a moment backed by the sound of traffic on the freeway and the tightening grip of the cold smothering the city around you with clammy fingers.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to hang up now,” Jade says carefully, seemingly at loss herself now. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Will you be-“

“Yeah, don’t worry.”

“Aright.”

“Good night, Jade.”

“Bye.”

She disconnects.

You stand in the middle of an abandoned road in the middle of the night, feeling like you’re too sharp, too fragile to try and move, like you’ve been split in two and might come clattering to pieces if you move. Instead you stare at your phone, the display still lit and showing John’s smiling face.

*

You’re hiding Gamzee’s furby in the refrigerator.

“Hope you like peas,” you mutter, shoving the thing towards the back of the drawer.

“Boo-dah!” Caliborn the furby says, quite accusingly, and then you’re slamming the door on it with a flourish. You have triumphed over a talking toy. Correction; _possessed_ talking toy. This, while it is barely ten in the morning on a Sunday. Shit, there should be an 8-bit tune blaring, you’re already on a roll.

“What’re you doing?” Sollux zones into the kitchen. He looks like a half-decayed banana peel and smells even worse. Probably hasn’t slept for a day, maybe two, he has that slightly manic look about him. 

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Go to sleep, Captor” you tell him, just as Sollux knocks into the table and sort of ricochets towards the sink. There he turns the tap and… stares at the water streaming into the basin. Just looks at it. _Oooo_ -kay. “Sollux,” you say and his body jolts into a state of consciousness.

He blinks at you and without his hideous shades the blue eye looks stark and sharp next to the brown. “How’s the thing with John,” he asks, sounding like he’s talking around a mouthful of cotton. Right. Time to go. You round the table, tail tucked between your legs like the coward you are. “KK,” he calls after you. “Not doing shit about it won’t fix it, you ridiculous fuck. Only make it worse. A lot.”

You’re not aware of screaming _FUCK YOU_ at him from the top of your lungs until it’s over and done, leaving you lightheaded and reeling and slightly achy in the jaw.

“Yeah, whatever,” he says, before ducking forward and sticking his head under the tap.

Jesus. What the hell. You hope he fucking drowns.

*

“What smells of self-pity and stale brownies? Why, I _never_! Is that you Karkat?”

Wonderful. All of the yay. Just what you needed.

“Hello, Terezi,” you say as pleasantly as you can with your mouth crammed full of brownies which, yeah, granted, were probably a little suspect when you unearthed them from the back of the cupboard. Then you turn up the volume of your laptop, hoping it is sufficiently discouraging without you having to say ‘here is a lovingly crafted list in my finest penmanship of all the reasons I never want to have this conversation with you in any iteration of paradox space, because that would be dumb and also I have a headache. It is signed with the freshly secreted mucus from my frontal lobe, please kindly fuck off, love, Karkat’.

“Oh, no you don’t.”

“Don’t what? What are you, a mind reader?” you fire back, pointedly cranking the volume up more.

“Karkat,” Terezi says and you go very, very still because that is her ‘I swear I am about to do something unspeakably insane and drastic and there somehow will be a fire-farting dragon involved so god help us if you do not do as I say right this instant’.

You blink at her.

“Get up.”

You spare one last, longing look towards your laptop currently blaring _The Princess Bride_ loud enough they can listen in five floors down. Sigh deeply. Yes, hello, deeply tormented soul here.

And then you get up.

*

Naturally the both of you get caught in the five-o’clock rush.

People pack into the trolley like overripe sardines and you brace over Terezi with a hand planted against the sticky metal wall so you can lean over her. Schoolchildren natter loudly and everywhere are people with shopping bags and briefcases clustered at their feet like overfed piglets. It’s impossible not to be in one another’s personal space and you just want the ride to be fucking _over_ already.

As soon as it is, though, you _really_ want to be back on that goddamn trolley with your nose crammed into someone’s armpit clack-a-clacking up and away, because Terezi lightly lands on the platform, folds her arms neatly behind her back and goes: “So.”

And you, like the adult you are, groan. “Do we have to do this?”

“Yes.”

“No, seriously, think about it, I could be out there getting the grisly hair up my buttcrack waxed and it would be jolly good fun compared to doing this.”

Terezi marches among the platform, beelining to wherever her nose takes her. You pull her aside before the smacks face-first into a kiosk and then you trail miserably in her wake, most empathically _not_ trying to wrap your mind around the fact that your ex-girlfriend is here to patch up your relationship, because you’re a miserable excuse of a carbon-based life form, and even fucking worse —you might just let her.

“You’re such a drag when you are moping,” Terezi remarks. Her nose is up in the air, nostrils twitching. Sniff sniff. She veers right. For some reason this has become completely unremarkable to you.

“Yes, I am oh so sorry my emotional state inconveniences you,” you deadpan.

Terezi grins. “Overruled.”

“Of course.”

“Overruled on account of the accused shamelessly indulging in the bittersweet ecstasy of self pity.”

“I am not—“ you start, anger flaring like she just poured oil on it. 

“Are you, really?” she muses and then perks up. “Pancakes!”

“Am I— _what_?”

“Pancakes!” Terezi repeats skittering towards a little shop, hand missing the doorknob three times before she finds it. “With all of the toppings!”

“It’s like, _five_.”

“Argument invalid.”

Yeah, okay. She wins this round. Pancakes it is. Both of you trundle inside a little hole in the wall. There’s four tables crammed inside and twice as much giggly girls and you’ve already half-turned on your heel when Terezi grabs the scruff of your hoodie and hauls you bodily along. Merciless stone-cold bitch that she is. You’re convinced this counts as cruel and unusual punishment, shit, you should probably be happy she’s not pulling out nipple clamps and a taser for a spot of recreational interrogation and slash or torture. Both of you commandeer the only free table,  a dainty lacquered affair snugly tucked away in a corner. On the menu is pancakes. That’s it. You’re surprised to see coffee and tea listed, you’d been almost sure they’d force you to rinse your fucking mouths with tepid batter.

You feel distinctly out of place.

It doesn’t help that you’re garnering half-suspicious looks, like you might just be about to pull a bomb out of your ass.

Damn it.

“Stop fidgeting Mr. Squirmy pants!” Terezi scolds, just as your food arrives. She tries to kick your shin and nearly fucking drop-kicks you in the crotch instead. Then again, it’s probably not an accident. You cross both legs and arms for safety. The waiter gives you both a funny look, before hightailing away.

“Better?” you growl.

“It’ll have to do,” she huffs. Sips of her tea. “So if it’s not self-pity, then what’s stopping you?”

“Stopping me?”

“From talking to John,” she clarifies. 

Of course, you are instantly suspicious. “Did you talk to Sollux?”

“I bribed Sollux with hot pockets and hostess cakes to spy on you.”

“Hot pockets and hostess cakes. That’s the price of my privacy,” you throw your hands into the air to beseech some divine fucklump oozing around on a cloud to grant you patience. A lot of it. With extra motherfucking sprinkles.

“More like the price to have him make an effort,” Terezi allows. “Anyway, stop stalling, we are having this conversation and we are having it now.”

That, right there and then, is when you realise you’re tired. You’re _tired_. Really fucking tired, the sort where your bones are dragging at your flesh with their weight. You want to go home. You want to go home and you want to sleep for forever and you want to be angry and you want to cry and you want to scream and you want John. 

“Fine,” you exhale, choppy. Like there’s razors in your fucking lungs. You lean on the table with your elbows, sink fingers into your hair. “I want to talk to him, I really do, and I fucking _would_ if I could have a guarantee that we’d be able to get through that conversation with him still—“ _mine_ , you don’t say. What if he decides it’s too much, too hard, too difficult. What if he decides the risk is too great and you’re just not worth it -could you blame him, even, for that? It’s his _father_. And you… well. Fuck, who are you kidding, _you_ wouldn’t pick you. What if John didn’t want you anymore?

What if. What _if_?

“I see,” she goes and at any other time you’d make a quip about it, but now that the words are pouring from your mouth you can’t seem to stop.

“He lied to me,” you say, and you feel small and confused and angrier than ever. “He lied to me and he’s scared of telling his father and I get that, but he _lied_ to me.”

John leaning towards the camera, the blue of his eyes framed by his glasses coming into sharp detail; ‘ _Guess what_ ,’ and then he looked you in the eye and lied. Lied again about it three days later and lied some more that weekend. Lied, straight to your face, when he was with you. _He knows, he’s okay with it, don’t worry_. Right in your face. Lied to his father, too.

Lied to you, maybe, so he could lie to himself. Shit. It doesn’t matter. How can you trust him again?

Terezi spears a piece of her pancake with the tip of her knife, swirls it through all the weirdass shit she asked for. Pops it into her mouth, chews. “So break up with him?” she suggests, mouth full and blasé as can be.

“No—“ you start, feeling a little ill. “No.”

She swallows noisily, licks her lips. “I see.”

You stare at her, uncomprehending. “What do you _want_ from me, Terezi?” you ask.

“Nothing,” Terezi says with calm seriousness. Her blind eyes stare into yours. “What do you want?”

John.

You want John. 

You’ve wanted him from the moment you had him pinned down and laughing in your face with grass in his hair and you’re so goddamn _angry_ with him but you still want him more than you can fucking _stand_.

“Then talk to him, dummy,” Terezi says.

That’s… You stare at her and Terezi stares right back. 

“Yeah,” you say. “Okay.”

“It will work out,” Terezi says. “For better or for worse.”

And that is so not reassuring at all and you’re leaning over the table so you can hug the shit out of her and hold on, for just a second, until your front is thoroughly slathered in _all the toppings_. All of them.

*

Hours later you’re still headachey and sensitive around the edges. You’re wedged into bed and blinking at the flicker of your laptop, trying to convince your brain that it has suffered enough emotional trauma for today and it needs to fucking give the all-clear for sleep. You’re not calm, not by a long shot, but the dose of resolve Terezi gleefully injected up your ass goes a long way. So your guts are still knotted up and you’re absolutely scared shitless, but tomorrow - you’ll talk to him tomorrow. Maybe the reason you can’t sleep is he’s still yours now and tomorrow he might not be.

Yeah okay, sleep so isn’t going to fucking happen. Maybe if Gamzee cheerfully pureed your skull with one of his juggling clubs. You wish Gamzee was home. If he was you’d crawl into bed with him, if only for his warmth and presence.

So you’re still awake when the doorbell rings. It’s - you squint with achy eyes at the clock on your laptop - nearly midnight. Probably just Gamzee finally returning after a busy day of being a creepy clown. So you refresh Dave’s shitty webcomic, sink a little deeper into the pillows. Then the doorbell rings again-a long rattling buzz, like they’re leaning hard on the button. In the next room over you can hear Sollux go ‘ _fuck seriously?!_ ’ and fall out of his desk chair to go stomping into the hall and towards the door. Hah, sucker.

You switch tabs, ponder Skype. Yeah, no, bad idea. Youtube it is. Some new movie trailers and maybe that one video with the French cats and the mirror. Nobody needs to know.

Sudden knock on your door. “KK!”

“ _Jesusfucking_ -WHAT?!” you shout.

You can hear Sollux shuffle around restlessly at the other side. “It’s for you.”

Huh. Okay. Whoever they are: fuck them, because you’ve achieved maximum snuggly comfort. You groan and burrow deeper. “Just send them in or whatever.”

There’s a pause, before Sollux actually bites out: “KK, I fucking _swear_ get your ass out here _right now_.”

Oh, god, fucking _seriously_? Seriously. You wriggle your graceless way out of the wonderful wrap of your bedding, flopping like a useless fleshbag over the edge, like the number one prima ballerina you are, before properly getting to your feet. You throw open the door, trailing sheets. “What?!” you bark into his face — and then you see his expression. “What?” you repeat, tongue going thick and dry with dread.

Sollux just tips his head towards the front door.

You take one step, and then another, leaving your sheets behind on the floor as your hands go numb. The front door is slightly ajar. You push it wider with the tips of your fingers. There, out in the hallway is… is…

 

…is John.


	2. Chapter 2

“John?”

“Hey,” he says.

“What—” just seeing him makes you feel like you’re falling. It’s not as though you’ve forgotten what John looks like, but it’s catching you off guard anyway - like a fist in your chest squeezing your heart. You don’t understand how he got here. John’s standing right in front of you. John’s here.

“Hey,” John says again. His face is pale. “Can I come in?”

“What are you _doing_ here?” you blurt, and all the shock of him suddenly standing before you spills out with those five words. It falls out of your mouth like everything always does: loud, rough and slightly combative. Somewhere to your right Sollux smacks a hand into his face - you want to tell him to get lost, but you’re irrationally anxious that if you look away from John for only a single goddamn second, he’ll disappear.

For the first time ever, however, John _flinches_. He goes white and wane and there’s an audible click of his throat as he swallows. “Karkat,” he begins, haltingly and then he seems utterly lost on how to continue beyond your name. His voice dies. Silence.

“Yes,” you say, stupidly.

“Karkat,” he sounds raw. “Please give me a second chance.”

You stare at him, at the edge of his trembling jaw. You blink and John swallows again, this time silent, but hard enough his Adam’s apple rolls under the skin like a pebble. You have no fucking idea what is going on. You’ve absolutely _no fucking idea_ what’s going on. Your silence makes John shrink in on himself the longer it stretches on - you want to tell him not to (stand up straight, dumbass and _look_ at me), but the words are stranded on the back of your tongue.

“He thinks you broke up,” Sollux informs you, in this godawful stage-whisper that could shatter glass. 

It takes a moment. A numbness spreads through your face as though your blood has been laced with ice. Odd prickling behind your eyes, pressure against your eardrums, dry lips. In your chest, your heart begins to hammer so hard you can feel it all the way up your neck. “ _What_ ,” you go voice wobbling even as it rises perilously. “ _What_?” you repeat, louder.

What the fuck.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

You mean to fucking yell it, but all you get is a wretched moan that spills into: “ —what the _fuck_ no, no! We didn’t… we didn’t break up, John, how the hell-“ (hurts to try and wrap your mind around what is this how did this happen you keep shaking your head how dare he) “-we _didn’t_ ,” you bite out. The tips of your fingers are shaking and your head begins to pound with all his not making sense, because you fucking _didn’t. Break up. With him_. He’s yours.

“Oh,” John goes. It’s just as small breath that rounds his lips. Nods a little. “Oh, that’s good,” he says and bursts into tears. Your mouth falls open.

A door closes; Sollux finally leaving.

“What the hell,” you say, and reach for him because every single clear drop rolling down his cheeks fucking flays you to raw terrified strips.

Before you can even lay a finger on him, John yells roughly: “No _wait_!”and the urgency in his voice is enough for you to go still like you got caught on freeze frame. John wipes at his face furiously, knocking his own glasses askew with clumsy hands. “ _Wait_ , wait,” he gives one last, gross sniff, clears his throat and pins you down with this expression you’ve never seen before; exposed, terrified, yet fiercely determined. “I’m sorry. Karkat I- I’m so, so _sorry_. I fucked up, I really fucked up. I hurt you and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have — I shouldn’t have lied. To you.” 

“John,” you try.

“I’ll never do it again, I fucking swear.”

“John.”

“I’ll tell my dad. As soon as I get home, I’ll tell my dad and—“

“ _John_ ,” you yell it hard enough his jaw snaps shut with a click and his eyes fly open. You kind of want to smack him. You kind of want to kiss him. What a fucking idiot; how can someone so goddamn stupid even exist? “Goddammit, what the actual fuck is this? Shit, just come _here_ , you - you fucking disaster—” you wrap both arms around him and draw him close. He’s as stiff as a board, as well as cold. His hair feels damp against the curve of your palm as you cradle the back of his head, and you feel like you’re trying to hug solidified winter air. 

“Hey,” you murmur against the shell of his ear. “Hey, shhh.”

John breathes in; once — fast, a gulp of air. A second time and then he all but collapses into you like falling into a grave. 

Fingers draw hard lines of contact as they rake down your back. Wetness bleeds into the neckline of your shirt. You hold on hard. You’re not going to lie; your eyes are clouding over so thickly you don’t fucking dare to blink. Against the side of your neck John gives another gross, drippy sniffle. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out, shifting you in his arms so the embrace changes, so _he’s_ the one holding _you_ \- stroking palms down the line of your spine as he hugs you against his chest.

God.

You have no idea how long the both of you stand there, half-framed in the open door. A long time. John warms to your body, but there’s an odd chill caught at the edges of him and yet his face burns where it’s buried in your hair. He smells different and that worries you, hands helplessly touching him everywhere you can, because you need to figure the hell out what’s wrong, obviously something _is,_ when he’s here and upset an pressing you into him so hard you can feel both your ribcages catch and grind together like some sort of morbid instrument.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs low into your hair and he’s _calm_ , suddenly. “Are you okay?”

“NO!” you snarl against the swell of his shoulder. “What kind of inane question is that, you gaping shitmuscle? We didn’t fucking break up! How can you even _think_ that, you’re such an incredible idiot, I can’t even-“

“Hey,” he says, and then he’s kissing you.

Hard and close-mouthed and desperate, with his hands cradling your face. Your eyes are wet when he pulls back, and it only causes him to kiss you some more and you’re so fucking okay with that, even if he tastes a little different, in some undefinable base way that terrifies you because have even when you were so thirsty for him you couldn’t fucking stand it, as soon as you kissed him everything always went: yes, that’s right. Why is it different?

“Hey,” he says again, lips pressing the word into yours with his eyes open and watching you. Kisses you, eyes still on yours, a burst of soft contact you can hardly stand. Your throat locks up and you reach for his hair and open your mouth under his, but he’s pulling back and your heart turns over. “I shouldn’t, sorry, I’ve got a cold you’ll - you’ll catch it and I don’t want-”

You shut him up.

He’s too fucking stupid to be allowed to talk. In a moment, you’ll talk, you will, you _need_ to talk, but for right now you need this, the assurance you’ve both had the shit scared out of you and you fought and it was awful, but you can still kiss and feel safe and terrified and so good and angry all at once. This asshole has an aberrant amount sway over your feelings and you’re ready to roll over and die for him and you don’t care.

“Holy shit John what the hell,” you babble when you finally let go. “What are you doing here, why would you think we- fuck, no, come inside you’re- you’re _trembling_.”

Trembling and burning and wet.

“Did you… did you walk from the airport?” you say, faintly, and when John doesn’t answer you know he fucking did and you’re one goddamn second away from putting on your boots and inserting your foot up his ass.

The best you can come up with is to drag his sorry carcass into the bathroom and wrangle him into bath.

*

So that’s how you find yourself about twenty minutes later: you dressed and on your knees next to the tub, with John frowning like he can’t figure how the hell he wound up naked inside of it. While you seriously figured this as being the most obvious course of action to get him warmed up again, the sudden heat of the water actually only seems to overcook him. Two red spots appear high on his cheeks. Fuck, that’s a fever. Shiiiiit.

“I can’t believe how stupid you are,” you sigh, reaching out to tuck his hair behind his ears.

John appears absolutely miserable, but he still looks at you like you should be wrapped up in paper and ribbon under his Christmas tree. His eyes are bloodshot, watery and positively huge without his glasses, and he’s a perfect disaster, really. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“Yeah, I heard you the first ten thousand times. I get that you’re sorry, John, but shit, we’re going to-“

“I will tell my dad,” he interjects almost instantly, sloshing water around as he twists to properly face you. Which means that he’s nearly folded double, his long legs sticking a mile above the water.

Jesus. You sigh, rub at your temples. “And you have the goddamn gall to call me a drama queen.” Okay, you admit it. That was to needle him. Works, too, seeing how John drops his eyes and swallows. The kicked puppy look. “Don’t give me that look. Stop it,” you tell him.

“I’m not-“ John protests. “I’m not trying to, I mean. I know apologising isn’t enough, but I don’t know what to say. I fucked up, man, what _is_ there to say?”

Right. You reach for a bottle of shampoo and squeeze a dollop into your palm. Scrub it into his hair. Not like it really requires washing, but you need to do something with your hands so you’re not completely reduced to acting like a moody rock. Seeing John in bath reminds you of another time; when you were in it with him and there were floating dick jokes. Seems like a lifetime ago. He’s here though. He came back to you. Here and watching you, like he can’t _not_ watch you, eyes resting on your face as you work the soap into a lather. He burns under your touch, radiating heat from the core of him. No wonder he tastes strange and smells different.

“Karkat?” John says, soft and questioning.

Okay. Fine. You drop your hands into the water, observe how the foam melts into a white corona around your wrists. Raise your eyes to him. “Am I such a shitty person you feel like you have to lie to me?” you ask, because no matter how goddamn horrible fighting with him was (…is?) that’s the question with a stranglehold on your heart. 

“No—“

“Am I a bad boyfriend?” That last is said quietly.

“Karkat, _no_ , no, not at all, okay? You’re great, you’re _better_ than great-” he assures you, rising to his knees and bringing a sheet of water up and over the rim with him as he wraps arms around your shoulders. He’s wet and smells of soap. “You’re not. You’re really not. You’re the best.” Draws back to smear an uncoordinated kiss across your cheek, before kneeling down in the tub again. Now your shirt is soaked and you’ve got half a bubble beard.

“Okay,” you say, rather uselessly, as John shaves the foam on your face away with a finger. “Then _why_?”

“I don’t know,” John murmurs, wretched.

Your whole face is tense from frowning and trying not to. You probably look angrier than you are. Wow. Achievement unlocked. You can talk about this like a fucking adult. You _can_. “I mean, aren’t we supposed to trust each other? I just don’t understand why you lied about it instead of- of just talking to me. How does that make sense?”

“I don’t know, Karkat. I just— is it so hard to believe I don’t know what I was thinking? It was stupid, I know it was stupid, but I’m not sure my dad is going to be okay with this. With us. With.. with me. And you’re-“

“Pushy?” you offer, feeling like a bag of moist turds.

“No, you were _right_. About lying to my dad and telling him I was at Dave’s. Even if he’s okay with me, being, well, _whatever_ … I know he— he will be disappointed about that.” John tries very hard to keep his face still, pretending to be carved from stone, but a tear rolls down along the curve of his cheek anyway.

He’s scared and you wish you could tell him it’d be okay, but you can’t.

This, you understand. You really fucking do. Your father was a good man. An amazing man. You even knew he was okay with homosexuality, hell, you know he even had a few… uh, dalliances with other men before he settled with your mom (knowledge filed under chapter one, section one: Things I Never Wanted To Know About My Father - The Saga (there is no such thing as sexually active parents, okay? You got delivered by the motherfucking stork, that’s your story and fuck if you’re not sticking to it)). You remember standing in the kitchen, shaking like a leaf in the wake of coming out to your father. Your dad just going _Hmhmm, that’s okay, son_ as he fixed himself a sandwich and not being able to fucking breathe until he turned to look at you. _Oh Lord, Karkat, seriously?_ he’d exclaimed before gathering you close. _Never doubt for a single fucking moment how much I love you_ -this, said rough in your hair.

You’d been fucking _terrified_. 

Fuck, you really wish you could promise him it’d be okay, that his father will still love him, will not be disappointed - but you’re not going to tell lies. Unlike some.

“Let’s get you out of there before you morph into a gross wrinkled raisin,” you just murmur, reaching for the shower head so you can rinse him off. By the end he’s a wet shivery heap sitting in the last dredges of water. Christ. You get him out of the tub, wrap him up in a towel and, fuck okay, you just can’t do this, you take the terrycloth burrito that is your boyfriend into your arms and hug him close. 

John presses his feverish face against the line of your jaw. Just for a second, because he’s sick and you pull away to towel him dry sooner than you’d like. You ruffle his hair, pat the water from his body. He’s naked and flushed and there shouldn’t be anything sexy about it. You dick says otherwise. Stupid attractive shithead. After he steps four times on your toes while you’re trying to stuff him into a pair of boxers you give up. Haul him towards your room first, so you can sit his uncoordinated ass on your bed. Your sweatpants are too loose around his hips and they’d probably fall off his ass if he tried walking around in them, but for sleeping they’re fine.

The sight of him sitting pink-cheeked on the bed and wearing your clothes… it drives you crazy, because the stupid idiot is gorgeous and you’ve got it so bad for him. Doesn’t seem like John knows that, the way he watches you with big, worried eyes. You cross towards the bed and reach down to cup his face between your palms. Kiss his heated mouth, once, twice, before sitting down on the bed with him.

“So,” you begin roughly, “what the hell possessed you to jump on a goddamn plane in the middle of the week while you’re sick? Overkill much?” 

You try your damn best not to think about how that’s maybe a little bit romantic (it isn’t, it is really fucking dumb; see also tremendous waste of money).

John stares at you like you’re the biggest goddamn idiot. “I don’t want to lose you, you asshole.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Swallow.

Okay, you’re a goddamn idiot. Still. “We’ve fought before,” you point out, frowning, “and I hate to break it to you, John, but it’s going to happen again.”

“I know! But we usually just yell at each other for a while and then we fix it… but I didn’t hear from you for _eight_ days, Karkat. What the hell was I supposed to think?!”

Okay. Point. This one you can give him, that’s where you fucked up. _Badly_. “Mea culpa,” you admit. “I just- I just needed some space, you absolute ignoramus. I didn’t fucking know what to- and I was so _angry_. It was for the best, believe me.”

“Could’ve let me know, it was… it was going to be-“ John trails off as his throat locks up. Long fingers pick nervously at the hem of the sweater you lend him.

You clear your throat. “Is it?” you ask, voice muted. “Are we?”

John looks you dead in the eye. “I’m sorry for lying to you.” Just that. Simple.

What more can he say? He fucked up. It happened and can’t be taken back. Now it’s up to you.

“Okay,” you say softly. “Apology accepted.”

Blink. Blink again. Then, like a rising sun, John smiling. Also crying. Jesus fucking dicks, this guy.

“Crybaby,” you snort, heart in your voice as you pull him down onto the bed with you. 

John’s eyes are wet and he’s overheated as he curls into you, exhaustion written plain across his face. You smooth your thumbs gently along the shadows beneath his eyes and John’s lashes flutter against the tips of your fingers as you press your face close to his. He still tastes strange when you kiss him, but it’s unbelievably hot, _literally_ , the inside of his mouth a welter of wet heat. John makes a soft noise, like he’s going to protest about the kissing again, and you take the opportunity to sweep your tongue past his lips. _Hm_! John goes, and then _hmmm_ , melting into you. His cheeks are hot under your palms and his mouth is wet and his face is damp… 

mmYEAH OKAY.

You’re turned on. Badly. Goddammit. Not going to lie, you’d really really _really_ very much a lot would like to have sex with him. Make-up sex sounds fantastic. For mutual comfort and reassurance, yes, but the whole emotional train wreck aside it’s been nearly a month since you saw him and you’ve _missed_ him. Now that the stress is receding the floodgates have been opened for everything _else_ and you didn’t jack off in a goddamn week and John’s making these soft vocalisations between every kiss and _god_. Sweetest of fucks you want him to bad you can taste it.

Not that you’re going to. In fact, you draw back until it’s just your lips grazing because he’s utterly blitzed out thanks to the fever and that’s, yeah, _no_. You’ve no doubt he’d say yes if you asked, but his mind isn’t one hundred percent there. Kiss him a little longer instead, an exchange of sighs and sensations, just drawing soft, easy pleasure from the catch of your upper lip at his lower. You thumb at his lower lip in the wake of your mouth, working the contact into his skin with pad of your finger. John makes a small, exquisite sound, the hands previously curled loose against you chest tightening.

Okay. Time to… time to back off. You do so. Gently.

“I should get you a painkiller,” you murmur, shaping the words agains his parted lips. Still receptive. NGh. Maybe… maybe in the morning. If he feels better, if his fever is down, if he wants to.

John is pink-faced and glassy-eyed. Even as you peer at his face through your lashes, you can see how he’s fighting to stay awake. Every time he blinks it takes him longer to open his eyes again, and even as you’re sliding off the bed they flutter shut and remain that way.

It takes you only a few minutes to grab a glass of water and some medicine, but he’s completely out cold by then. 

Gently rubbing his arm you murmur: “John, wake up.”

“Mrph,” he goes, face scrunching up before cracking an eye open.

“Uh-huh,” you respond sarcastically, helping him sit up and shoving the glass and medication into his hands. “Bottom’s up,” you urge. He does, toddler-fisting at his eyes all the while. He’s probably emotionally tired - fuck, you know you are. While he drains the last from the glass, you slip under the covers. Done, he curls up next to you, worming his way into your arms and onto your pillow.

A heavy exhale against your throat. Right there and then it hits you that, wow, you and John got through this. That’s… pretty big. Fuck, that _huge_. A lot of relationships crash and burn after their first big fight. Most never even try to get past it. You’d know, hah… because it’s happened more than once with previous partners. Like whoa fuck this; not even gonna try, just nope! End of relationship. That John was ready to go this far, was ready to fight — that’s. You swallow. John thinks you’re worth fighting for. Bursts of white-hot joy spark against your ribs. Just one thing though—

“Next time we have a bad fight, don’t fucking jump on an airplane, you absolute pancake. Believe me, if I’m breaking up with you, you’ll fucking _know_ , okay?” you inform him in a low rough voice.

John just blinks at you. “I’m kinda hoping I’ll never find out.”

It just kind of falls out of his mouth, like so many things do, thoughtless babble that dribbles straight from his brain to the back of his throat without any filters. He means it, is the thing. Like casually announcing that _hey, I’d like to spend the rest of my life with you_ isn’t a big deal. Incredible. Moments like these you just have not a single fucking clue what goes on in that head of his. Frankly, John absolutely sucks at being romantic. It either flies straight over his head or he thinks it’s hilarious. Then there’s moments like these, when he just sort of goes _BAM_ and fries all your circuits.

“Yeah…” you grit out, throat working like you’re swallowing a rock. Don’t say anything else. You’re too busy trying to figure out whether your chest feels too heavy or too light, too busy wondering if your heart just hopped out of your body and is now beating next to the one in the chest pressed against yours, sharing the same house of ribs and blood and flesh.

It’s too hot under the sheets with him, he’s like a goddamn furnace. You take off your shirt, push at his shoulder until he rolls over and tuck up behind him. It’s late. John’s holding your hand against his chest, fingers tangled together. His exhales come heavy, with a faint rattle — he’s crossed into the mucus phase already.

“Karkat?” he speaks softly into the darkness.

“Hm.”

“Are you asleep?”

“I would have been but _some_ idiot keeps making these mouth noises. What is it?”

One minute turns into two, and then three, and John is so slack and heavy in your arms you think he’s fallen asleep again when he suddenly says: “I’ll tell my dad as soon as I come home.”

You press your lips hard against the back of his skull. “Don’t,” you tell him. “Not until I’m there with you. We’ll do it together.”

“What if he’s angry?”

“We’ll deal with it,” you promise. It’s not like it has never occurred to you that it could go very bad very fast — you’ve already worked out some solutions for the worst case scenario and you have to get him out.

Shit. 

“We’ve got time, okay?” you say, as soft and reassuring as you can. “Whenever you feel ready.”

“Alright,” John answers, with only the faintest catch in his breath on the word.

*

Sleep eludes you.

Might be that it still hasn’t quit sunk in that it is _okay_ , you’re okay. What a weird day. Well, technically yesterday. Whatever. John’s sleep-limp, comfortable the way he’s flush against your front. The fever sears at your lips, locked against the bony bump low in his neck. Blueish light spills through the blinds and your room is transformed into a landscape of shadows and glowing splashes of luminescence.

It might be hours, it might be minutes, but John eventually turns to face you again in his sleep. The overly large hoodie is a disastrous twist around John’s torso. You listen to his breathing, the thrum of his heart, underscored by the sigh of the wind, the hush-hush of the traffic. Headlights sweep through your room whenever a car rushes down the street, a golden wink of light shearing though the shadows. It’s raining, a gentle patter against the window pane.

John goes: “Hm,” and shifts until he’s blinking at you, gaze distant with sickness. As soon as he manages to focus, though, he smiles.

You cup a hand against the side of his face, fingertips swirling through his thick hair, pinky and ring finger fitted the gentle hollow behind his ear. His cheek is hot against your palm.

John raises a hand and it lands against your chest. Stays there, so you can feel each finger, distinct and separate -like a brand. Everything smells of John. Sick John, yeah, but John, and you breathe in deep, heartbeat slowing down, blanketed by a glowing sort of warmth that settles into your bones like honey.

You slip into dreams like that.

*

You come awake slowly, your mind before your body because the latter has been abused to the point of exhaustion and is still trying to tell you that no, waking up is a bad idea, too tired for that, go back to sleep. There’s an alarm blaring however, one that is not yours, and a cold rush of air sneaks under the sheets as John sits up. Gritty and aching, your eyes flutter open. It’s still dark, the sort where dawn is only a distant promise. What the hell?

That last is muffled into your pillow, distressed, because fuck, what is going on? Your mind slips around various concepts drunkenly and you can’t comprehend a single damn thing. The first fully formed thought upon opening your eyes is of John, and that he shouldn’t be sitting, because he’s sick, the idiot, and why is he getting out of bed? 

You check your clock. Quarter past four in the morning.

Holy hell.

“Sorry,” John whispers. Lips smatter a cluster of kisses on your cheek, your forehead. “Go back to sleep.”

You nearly do. _Oh, fuck yes please_ , your body says, going heavy and useless at once. _Wait_ , your brain says.

“What?” you manage.

John’s curved over you, murmuring against the soft curl of hair at your temple, hands stroking flat across your body, his touch distinct and too warm. He’s gangly and handsome, glowing faintly in the suggestion of starlight. “-really sorry for waking you up,” he’s saying. “Try to get some sleep. I’ll hear you later?”

That last is hopeful.

Hear you—? Wait. _What_?

“John, what?” you’re scrambling upright. John kisses your mouth, hand kneading at your shoulder. He’s dressed. In his own clothes. “Where are you going?” you demand, alarms ringing so loudly in your head your teeth buzz with it.

John blinks, nudges his glasses further up his nose. “To the airport?” he says.

“You’re kidding me. You had better be fucking kidding me. John tell me, right now, that this is a shitty joke.”

“… no?” John hazards, making it sound like a question again.

“Oh my fucking god, you utter waste of seminal fluid, you-“ and you stop yourself right fucking there because you’re an octave away from shitting yourself with rage. Fighting with him so soon after what just happened really feels like pushing your luck. Okay. Breathe in, breathe out. “Correct me if I’m wrong but you’ve been here for less than six hours, so please explain to me _why_?” you grit out instead.

“Because I need to go to class at noon,” John tells you, restlessly shifting from one foot to another, like he’s in a hurry.

“Okay,” you answer faintly. Now, if anything, you’ve always fiercely supported John’s dedication. You didn’t get to finish college, but John still can and you never want him to regret not having tried hard enough. But this? This is sheer madness. “Okay, no. Missing your classes once won’t be the end of the world. Plus you’re sick as hell, you need to rest before it gets worse. I’ll buy you a return ticket when you’re better. Get back in bed.”

John fidgets. 

“John.”

“I really can’t, okay?” he blurts. “We have to do a presentation today and if I don’t show up the others will fail as well and that’d be a real shitty thing of me to do.”

He’s serious, you can tell. There’s nothing you can do short of clobbering him over the head with your desk lamp and tying him to a chair - he’s going to go, no matter what you say. For the duration of five heartbeats you sit there with the heels of your hands pressed hard into your eye sockets. This kid is crazy. You’ve never appreciated just how crazy until now.

“I’m sorry?” John offers, and the words come out a little bruised. You can hear him swallow and he’s too sensitive for this right now, unwell and emotionally ravaged.

Self hatred floods through you, a thick miasma throbbing inside of your skull. He doesn’t deserve this shit from you. “No, it’s-” it’s _not_ okay, really, but what can you say? “I’ll drive you,” is what you say instead.

*

This must be worst harebrained scheme of John’s ever, and that includes the time he switched the mayonnaise for toothpaste and none of you discovered it until days after he’d left. That had been terrible and he’d been lucky to be safe in Seattle or you’d have wrung his idiot prankster neck.

This is idiocy on a whole other level, though, god tier level of stupid ass bullshit. Because this asshole hopped on a plane to make sure his boyfriend (you) hadn’t broken up with him, only to up and leave not even half a day later, because he has a really important group presentation looming ahead. All while being grotesquely sick. John really doesn’t think about the shit he does sometimes (does he ever, you now wonder), he just does it, repressing any and all perfectly sane suggestions why doing said thing would be a bad idea.

During the whole drive you feel like an accomplice in the crime of further fucking him over, because the longer John’s awake, the snottier he gets, until he’s just this sniffling heap of skin and clothes sloshing around in the carseat next to you. He’s got nothing with him except for what he’s wearing, his wallet and airplane ticket in a pocket. At least you managed to convince him to wear a completely dry shirt and sweater of yours. It’s black, the sweater, and it leeches all color from his face. He looks ghostly.

You shouldn’t let him do this, you know. He’s going to fucking crash and burn, driving himself beyond his physical limits like that. It’s not the end of the world, just a bad cold, but you’re worried all the same. John came here because of you. Damn it.

It’s always busy in the airport. You’re blasted by a mangled roar of squeaking luggage wheels, murky chatter and garbled announcements over the speakers. John holds your hand, a line of sleepy heat against your side. You let him.

“Gate A again,” you mutter, eyes darting back and forth between the screen and the ticket.

Nothing about this makes sense. Doesn’t feel real. Your body is chugging along on auto-pilot, but your brain is still sort of going _where is the fucking pause button because I need a moment_.

“Are you going to okay?” you ask him. “Do you have your phone?”

John pats at a pocket and pulls it out to show you.

“Right.” You exhale hard. “Fuck, you’re such a crazy piece of shit, John.”

“No, you,” John returns and then he’s leaning in.

Oh god, he’s really going to get on that goddamn plane, isn’t he? Fuck, oh fuck, no. John noses at the collar of your shirt and the fabric whispers faintly, suddenly the reality of John leaving settles on the back of your shoulders in a nauseating slap of shock. Your heart begins to hammer anxiously.

You pull him closer, sliding a spread hand down the ridging of his spine, but somehow the hug goes backwards because _he’s_ folding _you_ in, until you’re burying your face against the skin of his throat and just kind of shake into his shoulder, like you’re about to cry but the tears are just not happening. A hand is cupping the back of your head and he’s ever so slightly swaying you both from side-to-side. He shifts and you notch your chin into the junction of his neck. You don’t want him to go.

You don’t want him to go. You want to take him home and crawl into bed with him, sleep forever, have sex, or not, and get into bath _with_ him.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” you whisper, rather belatedly. “I couldn’t deal and I freaked out- I don’t—“

 _I don’t want to loose you_. John jumped on an airplane to make sure that wouldn’t happen and you locked up completely, locked yourself up and away so you couldn’t go and fuck it up. Pretty sure you just won gold for failing at relationships. Grand dramatic gestures are supposed to be your thing. Fuck. You’re all talk, is what.

“It’s okay,” John replies against the line of your hair. “You’re kind of a dumbass, so I understand.”

You punch his shoulder, and he laughs a little. Then begins coughing, nice juicy barks of sound that he muffles into the back of his arm. Gross. Then the speaker system announces his flight and for all passengers to please proceed to Gate A and oh. No.

“Shit,” you choke out. “Shit.”

John presses his mouth to your forehead, then to your lips, so you raise your chin to let him, and your whole world begins to spiral off its axis. It’s not so much a kiss as a devastatingly delicate graze of contact, hands cradling your face as he brushes his mouth along yours, the only snatches of pressure caused by the natural grooves and hollow of your lips.

“I gotta go,” John sighs against the bow of your upper lip.

“Text me when you land.”

“Okay.”

“Call me when you get out of school.”

“Okay.”

“I fucking swear, you’re the craziest bastard ever,” you inform him angrily, thumping a fist against his right pectoral.

“No, you,” John argues again, lashes lifting so the blue of his yes peeks through them and tugging at your heartstrings, so you just embrace him some more and can shake in his arms, safe.

And then you have to let go, which you do, but not without one, two, three more kisses before being able to pull away. Not without running your hands over him, from the curl of his ears, his neck, to shoulders and down his arms to the tips of his fingers. Chest, belly and hips, the side of his thighs.

“Drive safely,” John says, rather inane, but then adds. “Bye.”

You don’t look up, afraid you’re going to finally crack if you do. So many odd things rise to the surface of your mind. That he didn’t eat. The he doesn’t have a scarf. That you have no idea how long it’ll be before you see him again. That he won’t be in bed with you in the morning.

“Bye,” you manage. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

John laughs, a soundless gust of air, pecks your cheek and turns away.

Doesn’t look back even as you don’t look away.

*

“So what you’re saying is that… he went back?” Sollux exclaims, dribbling soda down his chin in surprise.

You nod, hovering blearily over your fourth cup of coffee. Maybe you can just… fuck, _inhale_ the caffeine, or something.

“… and you let him?”

You eye him, thoroughly annoyed. Sitting on the kitchen counter means it’s easy to stare him down. “What did you expect me to do? Drug his ass and lock him up in the bathroom?”

Pause. Sollux opens his mouth.

“Don’t answer that,” you interject hurriedly. “I don’t want to know. Holy shit.”

“So what you’re saying is that because you were such an anally retentive idiot about the whole situation, John jumped on a plane in the middle of the week to make sure you hadn’t dumped him, _then_ left six hours later because he had a really important presentation. Also he was sick?” Sollux sums up. You refrain from answering. “Fuck. Where do you find these morons? At least he didn’t try to climb through your window like that chick you were dating back wh-”

“You can shut up any time now,” you remind him acidly.

“She was crazy, man.”

“I will staple your mouth shut, Captor.”

“Kurloz would dig that.”

“I can’t hear you,” you singsong.

“Yes, you can,” Sollux goes. “Also I was so right. About everything.”

“Altho I wath tho right,” you mock him.

“Very mature,” Sollux rolls his eyes at you. You stick out your tongue at him. 

It’s about eleven in the morning on a Wednesday. Since recently you have that day free, which is lucky because, hey, if you want you can try and take a nap in a short while. On the other hand you’re supposed to be working on your _writing_. Okay, let’s face it, that’s not going to happen. Your brain is basically a farting lump of goo due to exhaustion and mental overload. Shit, you’re surprised you’re still coherent.

It’s gray and dreary outside, not quite snow, but a steady, thick miserable drizzle that won’t let up. Shitty weather at its finest. For some reason you keep wondering whether you gave John tissues, because if you didn’t where the hell is going to blow his nose in? Even as you’re envisioning a rather disgusting scenario where John sneezes and the explosion of snot crashes the whole goddamn plane, your mobile chimes.

**_> From: John Egbert  
_** **_landed safely! plane didn’t crash!_ **

**> >To: John Egbert  
** **CONGRATULATIONS. TAKE A CAB INSTEAD OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT.**

You made sure he had enough cash money for that, so he should be fine.

“He landed,” you inform Sollux who’s watching you type away with unabashed curiosity.

“Great. So now what?” Sollux asks.

That is a good question. You slide off the counter. “A nap is what,” you tell him and wander towards your room. 

*

While you don’t quite manage to sleep, you do wallow around on your bed playing _Animal Crossing_ on Sollux’ 3DS. The sheets are a catastrophe and you should probably change them to get rid of the bacterial bio-hazard John ever so thoughtfully bestowed upon them, but, eh.

Lazy.

Too busy getting rid of pixelated weeds.

After that you try to write, give up, try again five minutes later and then promptly fall asleep with your face on your keyboard. Makes for a godawful wake-up call, as well as a nifty pattern moulded into your cheek which would be hilarious if it didn’t actually rather hurt.

The clock says seven in the evening and it takes you quite a while of blinking and frowning at it before you realize why that bothers you.

John didn’t call you.

_John didn’t call you._

Oh no.

Something must’ve happened to him. He somehow wound up dead in a ditch somewhere because you let him get on that plane. Shit. There’s no way he wouldn’t have called you after everything that happened. Air-headed though he is, there’s just no way he’d have forgotten after this morning. No way. Fuck. Shit. Where is your phone? Not on the bed. Not in your pocket. Not on you desk. Kitchen?

You go to see. The apartment is eerily silent, dark. Seems like even Sollux left, which is a rare occurrence indeed. You step on one of Gamzee’s horns, nearly piss yourself in fright, hurl the wretched thing further back into the hallway and finally make it to the kitchen. Phone.

Still got enough blocks left. Right. He better not be fucking dead or kidnapped or whatever the hell. You call up his contact, press call. You listen to the ring tone beep at you. Long enough it eventually redirects you to the voice message. Try again. And again, every static beep a drop of ice in your gut. Obviously, the more he fails to pick up, the more you panic and you’re on your sixteenth try when suddenly:

“Yes, hello?”

That.

 _Is not John_.

Just like that, you go very still and very cold. That’s not John. He got kidnapped. Oh god.

“Who are you?” you demand, mind kicking into overdrive because what the fuck to you do _now_? Do you alert the authorities? Do you go on a goddamn killing spree? Do you spectacularly flip your shit? All three? 

“Ah, my apologies,” the other person says. “This is Jack, John’s father.”

You… probably shouldn’t think that’s somehow WORSE than John being kidnapped but. Okay, shit, that _is_ so much worse, this is basically the worst fucking thing ever, it is a calamity of a clusterfuck and you’re at the centre of it, what _now_ , just fuck fuck fuckkkk…

“Hello?”

Do you hang up? No, shit, can’t hang up, idiot, call ID is a thing and that would be weird and creepy as fuck of you. Did he check for the name? Must’ve, likely, probably only answered because you wouldn’t give up. Fuck. Oh, no. Maybe pretend not to speak Engli— no wait you already did. Okay. Relax. Just—

“Ah, yeah,” you answer and convulsively clear your throat. You sound suspect as hell with how low and gritty that came out, great job. “This is Karkat. I’m a friend of John’s.” There. That was neutral, right? Nor a lie either, John _is_ your friend, so it totally counts. Now he’s going to tell you why John’s not available and you can just say you’ll call back later. Du’h. 

Only… that’s not what he says at all.

“Just a friend.”

Fuck. Oh, _no_.

Shit.

That’s not a question at all. It is so much worse than that, because there is no fucking way that man is saying that for the heck of it. Not with that tone and intonation. This is bad. Somehow he knows. Somehow, he suspects. What now? What the everliving fuck do you do now? There is absolutely no way you’re outing him to his father. No fucking way. You clench your jaw, hate that you can’t hang up, don’t _dare_ hang up before you know what happened to John, whether he’s okay. 

Can’t say no; won’t betray him like that. Can’t say yes; because it’s a massive lie and if John’s dad already knows that will only make it so much worse. Anything you could think to say right now will only make it worse, really, and while you’re safe on the other side of the phone, John’s _right there_.

This is it. This is the worst case scenario.

It’s hard to keep your breathing controlled, but you’re absolutely terrified. Just as you’re wondering whether you should just ask if you can talk to John and risk ignoring that implication, John’s father exhales audibly.

“Son, it’s _okay_ ,” he says. Ever so kindly. Gently.

You think you actually lose a moment there. Just a few seconds. White noise and vertigo and not being able to understand what just happened. “I—“ you begin, hopelessly.

“Karkat?” It sounds extremely odd, your name from this man’s lips. Soft-edged, not as harsh. “It’s okay, calm down. John told me.”

“Oh,” you go faintly. You need to sit down. You do so, promptly. On the floor. Holy shit. “Oh my god, that crazy idiot,” you manage. You’re going to kill him. Wait, how much of that was out loud? Oh fuck. Shiiiiit.

John’s father -Jack?- laughs. It’s a rich sort of laugh, but restrained. Warm. “Breathe,” he suggests.

“I told him not to,” you explain, and why are you telling him this? “I told him to w-“

“Until you were here with him, yes I know.”

“Fuck,” you say and then mentally screech _WHY_?! Dammit, keep a lid on the foul language, you crusted over crotchstain you. “Oh shit, I’m— aah. I’m sorry. My apologies.”

“I’ll have you know we have a swearing jar here,” he says cheerfully. “Currently Dave is our greatest contributor.”

You muffle a noise into your fingers. Might be a laugh, might be a scream, who knows. This is some crazy ass dream. Sollux laced your coffee. Petty revenge. That must be it. “Did he tell you-“ no, stop right there, keep your idiot mouth shut.

“From start to finish,” Jack merely says, sounding amused by it all for some godforsaken reason.

Oh god, no. NO. That little shit _told_ him how you basically banged him in a tent at a music festival? Great going, John, best idea. You pull at your hair. Bang your head against the top of your knee for good measure. Okay. Suck it up. Act like the adult you’re supposed to be and whatever you do, _don’t_ apologise because you’ll never be sorry for that. Meeting John at that festival was the best thing that ever happened to you.

“I don’t know what to say,” you offer after a while and then laugh a little, giddy and wild. It’s that or a mental breakdown.

Jack hums thoughtfully. “Are you quite alright?” he asks, seriously.

“I— I’m sorry?”

“I understand that the two of you fought? Is everything-“

“Oh. Yeah, we— oh shit!” -dammit!- “How is he?”

“In bed with a temperature of over a hundred degrees,” Jack replies, sounding utterly exasperated in that super special jaded way one can only master after dealing with one John Egbert for extended periods of time.

“Jesus. Did he at least manage to complete his presentation?”

“He did, and scored pretty well, too.”

“Oh, that’s - that’s good,” you nod a little, to nobody in particular because you’re sitting on the floor in an abandoned apartment.

“Do you want to talk to him?”

“… can I?”

Jack laughs, and this time it’s honest and warm. “Of course! Hang on, I need to go upstairs.” You hear a stair creak, Jack’s chopped exhales as he ascends. “I swear I am not normally in the habit of breaching John’s privacy like this, but after he came home today he all but walked up to me and rather just spilled it all out. When I saw your name on the display, well, needless to say I got extremely curious. Not to mention I’d had quite enough after hearing ‘ _How Do I Live_ ’ for the sixteenth time.”

… John has ‘ _How Do I Live_ ’ set for you as his ringtone. That’s terrible. That’s not adorable at all. You’re totally not melting. Nope. (god that is a hideous song though)

“I can imagine,” you say with an eyeroll.

“Obviously I just wanted a chance to talk to the man who managed to sweep my son off his feet —ah, here you are then,” and then the phone hisses with the passing of air even as your face goes ruddy brick red.

A rustle, then, blearily: “…’Lo?”

“YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT!” you yell at John.

“Karkat,” he says happily. “Hi.”

“HAVE YOU NO EARS? ARE YOUR AURICULAR SPONGE CLOTS SO THOROUGHLY BACKED UP THAT YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF HEARING THE WORDS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH?”

“Am hearin’ the words jus’ fine, Karkat, no need to yell. Geez.”

“Really? Then tell me, John, what the fuck possessed you to go and tell your father like that? Are you so mentally underdeveloped that you honestly can’t process any and all sane conclusions? I feel almost responsible for your utter stupidity, like I enticed you to do the complete opposite by suggesting a logical course of action, which was to wait until I was there so we could face this together. Instead you toddle your phlegm inebriated ass right over to your father and tell him everything. Tell me how that was a splendid idea, you shit, because right now I feel about as useful as a bag of freshly sucked dicks.”

“Man, Karkat, relax. He’s fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine.”

“You make absolutely no sense at all.”

“Is just that, well. I was scared, okay? But it was also really important that I fixed it? I lied to my dad about where I was going. So I told him, because if I didn’t, I’d get more scared and then I’d never tell him, you see?” he’s slurring his words. He’d probably pumped full to the gills on fever medicine.

“Oh my god, John,” you groan, despairingly. “It is like you have only two modes: nope and full throttle ahead.”

“Karkat?”

“Yeah?”

“He wasn’t disappointed.”

“I know,” you answer, and then John’s breath hitches. “ _Don’t_ , stupid. You need all that water in your body, you indisposed lump, stop crying. Hey-”

“He was angry about the lying, a little, but he wasn’t disappointed. He said he was proud,” his voice is barely a wisp there at the end. John laughs, shaky and disbelieving, happy about that for the first time in years, then sobs. Then laughs again and this time you join him, suddenly overwhelmed by affection for this person, this wash of gilded warmth like a glowing taper light.

“Hey so…”

“Hm,” you go, closing your eyes and allowing the smile to bloom across your face.

“Uhm. It’s my birthday soon.”

You swallow. Hum some more.

“You should,” he wavers and has to clear his throat. You can just imagine him plucking at the sheets on his bed, bottom lip sucked under. “You should come. To Seattle. If you want.”

“Do you want me to?” you say, voice gravelly and tight, because, well, this is where it went wrong eight days ago.

“I really, _really_ want you to be here,” John whispers, voice strangling around a wad of emotion.

You nod, in the darkness. To yourself. To him. Because it’s hard to talk for a moment and you can’t do anything else. “Okay,” you manage eventually. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

*

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

EB: are you in the cahoots with my dad?   
CG: carcinoGeneticist is currently unavailable. Please leave your message after the beep.  
CG: BEEP.  
EB: real cute.   
EB: dude I saw you add my dad on facebook. the facebook my dad made just so he could talk to you.  
EB: and now the bastion of fatherliness is braving the attic to dig up the old photo books.   
EB: …dude.  
CG: ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE A POINT HERE, JOHN? BECAUSE IF YOU ARE, I AM NOT SEEING IT. DID YOU HIDE IT? SHOULD I RUFFLE AROUND IN YOUR ANNOYED WHINING UNTIL IT FALLS OUT? UNLESS YOU’RE ABOUT TO MAKE IT IN A FIT OF INSPIRED CREATIONISM, IN WHICH CASE YOU CAN IMAGINE ME GOING HMM, YES, YES, FASCINATING, DO CONTINUE.  
EB: playing coy doesn’t suit you at all, you dick.  
CG: OKAY, PRAY TELL, WHAT COULD BE SO HORRIBLE ABOUT ME SEEING THOSE PHOTOS? I LITERALLY SAW YOU SNEEZE SNOT DOWN THE FRONT OF YOUR FACE. BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY I HAVE LONG SINCE BECOME IMMUME TO YOU FAILING AT LIFE IN GENERAL.  
EB: BECAUSE THEY’RE *BABY* PICTURES KARKAT!  
EB: karkat?  
EB: hey, rude! did you really just leave?  
EB: seems like the idea of my bare toddler behind is too much even for you, huh, tough guy. baaaawk bawk bawk.  
EB: …  
EB: karkat!  
CG: WOW, NEEDY MUCH?  
EB: you just left!  
EB: ruuuuuuuude!  
CG: I’M SORRY, YOUR FATHER JUST POSTED SOMETHING ON HIS WALL AND IT DEMANDED MY IMMEDIATE AND COMPLETE ATTENTION AS WELL AS AN ADDITIONAL FIVE MINUTES TO REVEL IN THE MOST ANCIENT AND NOBLEST OF ARTS THAT IS POINTING AND LAUGHING. A LOT.  
CG: I WAS NOT AWARE YOU WENT THROUGH A CROSS DRESSING PHASE.  
CG: YOU’RE A PRETTY PRINCESS, JOHN.  
EB: oh my god, dad, *no*! aaaaagh!  
EB: i am like five in that picture! also that’s totally jade’s fault! she always wanted to play house and be the husband so that made me the wife.  
EB: okay.  
EB: that sounds weirder than it was.  
CG: NO KIDDING.  
CG: SUDDENLY SO MANY THINGS MAKE SENSE NOW.  
CG: DOES ROSE KNOW ABOUT THIS? NO? MAYBE I SHOULD TELL ROSE ABOUT THIS. I WILL TELL HER RIGHT NOW.  
EB: i was five. jade bullied me. it was beyond my control! i am innocent dammit!  
CG: THE LADY DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH, METHINKS.  
CG: DON’T WORRY, JOHN, YOU LOOK CUTE IN A TIARA.  
EB: AAAAAAAARGH!

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] \--

CG: HAHAHA.

 

 

 

 

  
_-fin-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ART FOR GRAVITY:  
> [The Karkat eating his worries away by escl](http://everlind.tumblr.com/post/91867830013)  
> [The Karkat & Terezi + pancakes scene by bluearturtle](http://bluearturtle.tumblr.com/post/91971175978/oops-the-5pm-pancakes-became-5am-shhh-dont-tell)  
> [John wincing by bluearturtle](http://bluearturtle.tumblr.com/post/93427518478/what-are-you-doing-here-you-blurt-and-all-the)  
> [John bursting out into tears by bluearturtle](http://bluearturtle.tumblr.com/post/95821513843/he-thinks-you-broke-up-sollux-informs-you-in)  
> [Naked cuddles by escl](http://everlind.tumblr.com/post/93523076358)  
>    
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Standing ovation to my beta [Pi](http://thepioden.tumblr.com), who all but single handedly managed to haul me through this. Not only through providing invaluable feedback and encouragement, but for being able to unblock me. As well doing a massive beta-scrub. Thank you so damn much.  
> Second of all, thanks to nerdish, for her kind words, endless support -and for always having my back.  
> And last but certainly not least, all my adoration to the people who had to deal with me having a perpetual meltdown over this. You guys rock.  
> 


End file.
